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I'm sure most of you guys know that there is a Hollywood production of Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson, and produced by Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures with Weta Workshop being involved. Well, they finally released a photo of Scarlett Johansson in the lead role as the Major (I'm wondering if they're not going to use the name "Motoko Kusanagi").

So here's the photo:

Image size reduced, original size: 680 x 478. Click here to view the image in its original dimension.

The movie is planned for an American release on March 31, 2017.

There were also some news about the other cast, Pilou Asbæk (who was in Lucy with Scarlett) will play Batou, Michael Pitt will play the Laughing Man, and Beat Takeshi plays the Public Security Section 9 founder and chief Daisuke Aramaki.

The director is Rupert Sanders from Snow White and the Huntsman fame and Straight Outta Compton's screenwriter, Jonathan Herman, working on editing earlier drafts of the movie that were written by William Wheeler and Jamie Moss.

I'm not sure what to make of this movie with regards to the casting (I was under the impression most of the main characters of GiTS were Japanese) and whether it'll be any good considering most Western adaptations of anime seem to be kinda bad (Dragonball Evolution for example).

Hollywood's trying to sell Japanese pop culture to mainstream America again, eh? Theron sucked as Aeon Flux... the same fate will befall Johansson~

A live action TV series of Stand Alone Complex with an all Japanese cast would rock all sorts of sox. Netflix has the capacity BUT ...lol Netflix, we do what we feel is gewd in da hood mangz~ ***

Only an all J-cast TV show with a high budget would do SAC justice. The Laughing Man plot is amazing, and the short time-span of a movie would severely maim the story and characters.

It's Aeon Flux all over again, thank god that Evangelion live action hasn't been jump-started yet...

Only a screenshot-by-screenshot identical recreation/replica in live action could ever do anime justice. The medium is great for inspiration: look at the Matrix ... but adaptations: barf Dragon Ball ...they need to be replicated on high budget to a T.

It's not impossible, just impractical from a monetary point of view to the producers. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Just another cash~grab by the olde 'murican tinsel town~

A lot of the negative reactions to the film I've seen online has been about the whitewashing of the cast. The thing is I wonder if this is just another example of how Hollywood is fundamentally broken, as was the case with the casting of that Moses movie, Exodus, in which the director complained he wouldn't have gotten funding if he hired non-white actors.

It's a shame since I could see an actress like Pacific Rim's Rinko Kikuchi being a far better fit for the role of the Major.

Wouldn't matter even if they had an all-Japanese cast, it'd still be shit.

Seconded, just remembering Cutey Honey live action makes me wanna put a bullet for my valentine through my cranium... although there are instances where there's an exemption, J-drama adaptations of manga. Iryu was amazing, with a low budget and a lot things chomped from the manga... but it was great seeing all that heart surgery live~

@ BOZZ: Kikuchi's too old in my opinion... Motoko in SAC / the original Shirow manga looks 25... and not that Japanese looking. She's an android, with vague a Japanese appearance... a 20 something bilingual Korean girl could pull it off better. Big stars hardly make faithful characters... a fresh face usually nails the role then fades into obscurity~ tis the nature of the profession, if it can even be called a profession. I'd only quit my day job if I had a multi-film contract with a huge paycheck.

I read about that too, the whole bit of Paramount/DreamWorks using CGI to make background characters (according to them) look more East Asian. They apparently turned it down because it didn't look good, but what bugs me is how anyone in their right mind thought that was a good idea.

Hmm, let me hazard a guess, not a big fan of Kotaku? It's just one of the sites I visit for gaming news (it has the odd interesting article from time to time), others include Gematsu and Dual Shockers.

I thought Paramount would like money enough to get an actual Asian actress since its cheaper than Scarlett Johannson. Something is serious gone wrong in Hollywood with their tail between their legs.

On the plus side they could also help launch someone's acting career if the movie turns out great (like seems to be the case with Daisy Ridley, she's rumoured to have been cast as the new Lara Croft), and they wouldn't have gotten backlash for whitewashing. Then again, this is Hollywood, look no further than the casting choices made for recent movies like Exodus: Gods and Kings.